


any man of mine (better walk the line)

by curiouslyfic



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-26
Updated: 2012-05-26
Packaged: 2017-11-06 00:57:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/412940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/curiouslyfic/pseuds/curiouslyfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint knows what’s up. Hard to miss something as tabloid sensational as a sex tape and tell-all about the Black Widow. </p><p>Only this time, he's not the only one who's got her back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	any man of mine (better walk the line)

**Author's Note:**

> For [this](http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/5102.html?thread=4379118#t4379118) prompt over at avengerkink@LJ. Much love to thepretender501 for all the help.

Clint walks in to tension thick enough to cut, two-thirds of the team kicking around giving each other weird looks and Natasha nowhere to be seen. He’s got his bag slung over a shoulder and the ass-drag of jetlag making bed sound pretty good, Bruce look even better, but he hasn’t exactly been incommunicado in Helsinki. 

He knows what’s up. Hard to miss something as tabloid sensational as a sex tape and tell-all about the Black Widow. 

Clint nods a silent greeting at the guys, spares a little grin just for Bruce, and calls out, “Honey, I’m home,” in the rough direction the guys are staring. 

No question that’s where Natasha is, not if they’re all looking worried or whatever, so Clint’s not surprised when she pokes her head out. 

Natasha looks like shit. Clint’s had a long fucking plane ride — and a long fucking conversation with Director Fury about appropriate behavior for an Avenger/SHIELD agent — so he’s mostly over the urge to put a few arrows through the fucker who’s made her look like that, but mostly isn’t entirely. 

He could get a few shots off, no problem. Wouldn’t even feel bad about it. Shit, he’d probably wear that dressing down with pride. 

“Early?” She doesn’t look happy about that, though she also doesn’t look as sharp as she normally would. “Fury send you back for crisis management?” 

Clint hates the bitterness in her tone. He gets why it’s there but fuck, he hates that she’s in that headspace, questioning everything because someone she cared about fucked her over. “Nah. Wrapped it up faster than expected.” He shrugs, easier than he feels. “What can I say? I had some decent motivation to get my ass back here.” By now, he’s close enough to her to sling an arm around her shoulder, pull her in like they’re actually joined at the hip. “You and me, Nat, we got some drinking to do.” 

Right now, he’d kill to see her eyes flash hot, to see that coil of temper he knows she keeps clamped down pretty tight, but she seems about as far away from that as she gets. Right now, she’s almost delicate, more fragile than she’d ever admit and in desperate need of a mental reset. 

Clint can do that. Clint’s made a career of it. 

She stares at him for a long moment. Clint swears he can feel her trying to be herself, slipping out of gear, stalling like she just doesn’t have the energy to get there anymore. She’s had two days, as far as Clint can tell; two days to get over it or two days to let it get worse. Right at this moment, Clint thinks it’s pretty clear which way she’s gone. 

So for the first time since he sacked up and got obvious with his scientist, Clint skips the welcome home kiss in favor of guiding Nat towards the elevators, heading for his place with nothing but the best of intentions. 

And it says something about the other guys that they let him do it, that he can feel them all watching him but can feel, too, their relief. 

He’s not sure he can blame them. Broken-hearted Natasha isn’t exactly easy. 

:: 

Clint’s been gone long enough that his fridge should be empty but he’s also been in touch with Bruce, who’s been a total sweetheart about restocking as per Clint’s grocery list. There’s a cheesecake thawing in the fridge, vodka chilling in the freezer, and enough alcohol in his cupboard that Clint could start his own bar. 

For tonight, that’s pretty much the intention. Whatever Nat wants, man, whatever makes her feel better. Clint’s pretty sure that shit’s in the best friends handbook. 

Assassins of Nat’s caliber don’t get drunk often and they absolutely never get drunk unless they feel safe. Too much at risk to let the guard down easily, and Clint gets that because he’s the same. They’ll drink together on very rare occasions but things like this, drinking to get fall-down, stupid drunk, almost never happen. 

So when Natasha tells him the girls tried to get her drunk last night, Clint lifts his eyebrows and wonders how Natasha talked her way out of it, whether she’d just gone along with it and faked it as usual. The ‘girls’ are apparently Darcy, Jane, and Pepper. And Sif, apparently. Clint hopes she just happened to be on this side of the Bifrost when the news broke, because the alternative is that news of Nat’s situation has gone interplanetary. 

That would fucking suck. 

“Apparently on her world, I’d be entitled to slay him in glorious battle,” Natasha says, eyes bright but still not quite _Natasha_. 

Clint shrugs, taps a finger against his glass. Vodka’s not his drink, he prefers the burn of whiskey, but Nat’s a vodka girl. Clint’s just there to keep pace tonight, do what he can to be there for her. 

“You know, we could arrange that here,” he muses. 

They’re _Avengers_ , they get a lot of fucking leeway from the public. Besides, Clint kind of thinks everyone who’s ever had a shithole ex would completely understand the urge. This, he thinks, is what happens when people like them date civilians, though he’s learned from experience not to bring it up. 

She laughs a little, humorlessly. It sounds a lot like a sigh. “Thor tried. It took Jane and Darcy _and_ Pepper to talk him down.” She looks baffled in the best way, like she still can’t make the pieces of that fit together but isn’t insulted or anything by the attempt. “He said we could avenge my honor.” 

Clint takes a swig of his drink, swallows hard. “See, I knew I liked that guy,” he says, gesturing at her with his glass. 

“Everybody likes Thor,” Natasha points out. Clint holds his breath, hopes she doesn’t take that thought in whatever direction’s put the bleak look back in her eyes. 

“Well, how could you not? The guy’s a big puppy. One of those goofy yellow ones, what are they called?” Clint scrunches his face up, can’t for the life of him find the word he wants. 

“Golden retriever?” Okay, that sounds like she’s mocking him a little. Maybe. So that’s good, that’s his Nat. Won’t last and he knows it, it’s still way too early in the process, but it’s a decent place to start. 

“Yeah,” he breathes and beams at her. “That’s the one. Golden retriever.” 

She smiles wanly. “I’ll have to remember to tell him you said so.” 

It’s not a threat, not even a fake one, because Thor would probably like the comparison. Well, once Jane explained what a golden retriever is. “You do that.” 

For a moment, they just sit in silence and drink. Natasha makes short work of hers so Clint has to chug his to keep up, which is going to mean bad things when he tries to stand later if she doesn’t slow down, but fuck it, this is Natasha’s night. He’s short of sleep and more jetlagged than he likes, and under normal circumstances, he’d already be sleepy-spooning with Bruce somewhere. 

Not an option tonight. 

Clint doesn’t mind the silence, not when it’s pretty vintage Natasha, but eventually, his curiosity gets the better of him. “Have fun with the girls?” 

“Surprisingly, yes.” Natasha tops them both up, Clint thinks just so she’ll have something to do with her hands. “To hear Darcy tell it, Jane had appalling luck before Thor.” She glances at him, that cool assessment he hasn’t seen from her in a while. “We all pretty much agreed there is a tragic shortage of decent men in the world.” 

Clint tips his glass out to clink against hers in salute. “I hear you there.” 

She mock-glares at him, an eyeroll cut short. “Yeah, we got to that, too, how all the good ones are gay or married.” 

Not so long ago, Clint might have pointed out the choices for Avengers pretty much sucked across the board, gay or straight, but with Bruce in the picture, he can’t. It’s weird to think there’s part of the commiseration routine he can’t join her for, but if he parrots back what he thinks she wants to hear, he’s sure she’ll call him out on it. 

If there’s anyone in Stark Tower who knows exactly how gone Clint is over his scientist, it’s got to be Natasha. He’s been dubious about her guy, the ex whose name escapes him at the moment, but the guy had made Natasha happy and really, that’s all Clint can ask. 

The tabloid tell-all, though, that’s the kind of bullshit that deserves an arrow to the ass, assuming Nat’s left enough of him to be a target. 

“Or Cap,” Clint points out when it occurs to him, because he absolutely cannot tell her any of the things he’s thinking now. 

Natasha gestures at him to keep drinking, relatively impatient, and she doesn’t start speaking until he does. He doesn’t know what’s up with that until she says “I don’t know about that. Cap’s pretty gay for Tony.” 

Clint chokes on his vodka. Natasha looks pleased by that response. “Uh, I don’t think…” 

She arches an eyebrow at him, so Clint shuts up. 

“Trust me, there’s pining. _Mutual_ pining.” Her face shutters. Clint fucking hates that, watching what little good mood she’s managed wink out in an instant. “God, that’s my life now, isn’t it? Four of you are gay for each other, Thor’s basically married, and I’m going to die alone.” 

“Hey, come on, quit that shit. Have you seen yourself? You’re amazing, Nat, you are no question the best woman on the planet, you could have any guy you wanted.” Clint snorts as he warms up to his subject, because he wasn’t kidding back in Prague when he’d said she’s the only woman he’d even think about going straight for. “I’m surprised you’re not beating them off with sticks.” 

“Please. What are my choices? SHIELD or civilians?” It’s her turn to snort. Clint can’t really blame her. Before Bruce, he’d reached a point where even Coulson was starting to look good, and that guy was quite possibly the straightest guy in the world. “Come on, you know how that goes.” She curls her lip and drains her glass like it’s water, mutters unhappily in Russian. 

“You thought about trying the company ink again?” It’s as close as he’ll get to bringing up the elephant in the room unless he’s following her lead. 

“After last time? No. I want to date them, Clint, not bury them early.” Well, that explains the civilian ex, though privately, Clint thinks those are more doomed to failure than Natasha dating another agent. “You know, maybe alone’s not so bad.” 

She sounds like she believes it. He gets why she would — their jobs aren’t exactly the kind of thing that makes it easy to connect with other people and even before they’d been Avengers or SHIELD, they’d been assassins — but it’s different now. Feels like it is, anyway. They’ve got something like roots here now, space to call their own and a place to just be, and maybe they’d both thought Tony Stark was crazy when he made them all move in but now, well, it feels like he’d just been crazy genius. 

And from almost the moment they met, Clint’s figured he had a connection worth keeping with Natasha. So when he hears himself say, “Never, Nat. You’re not alone,” he knows it sounds rougher than it should, but he can’t help bleeding out how he feels. 

If there’s anyone besides Bruce Clint can let himself feel around, it’s definitely Natasha. 

“I know,” she says, toying with her glass, looking at it as though Clint won’t notice she’s avoiding eye contact if she does. “I know that, okay? And don’t think I don’t appreciate it, because I do. But I think we both know it’s not the same.” 

It takes way more effort than it should not to mention Coulson. 

:: 

She wants to grill him about Helsinki and he knows Natasha always does better with information, so he lets her interrogate him for a while. They make a drinking game out of it, blow through more vodka than Clint should be drinking and enough to make Natasha look comfortably glassy-eyed, and to cover for the things he absolutely cannot tell her, Clint settles for making her laugh. 

Watches her and wonders all over again how the asshole she’d been dating could have thrown all this away for a bit of notoriety and a payout. 

Yeah, Clint’s going to feel better if he can get that arrow in. Didn’t get the one through Loki’s eye, which still annoys him a little, but he can absolutely put a few through Natasha’s ex. 

“So. What hospital did you put him in?” 

Natasha wouldn’t be Natasha if she had to ask for clarification; they might not have been talking about her ex at all when Clint lets that slip out but she’s known him well enough for long enough to follow along. “I didn’t. We’re handling it through litigation.” She sounds like she’s quoting that last part. “Bad PR to have an Avenger kicking a civilian’s ass, no matter how much he’s earned it.” 

Clint stretches his arm across the back of his couch to play with her hair. When he gets up, the vodka’s going to kick in and kick his ass but until then, he’s okay just chilling beside her on the couch. “Tony’s idea?” 

“Pepper’s, actually.” She flashes him something he is no way drunk enough to mistake for a smile. “Tony’s been busy bribing me. With shoes.” 

Clint cannot imagine why. “Like rocket-powered ones or…?” 

“Expensive ones. Manolo Blahniks.” Natasha doesn’t admit confusion often but right then, it’s as clear on her face as Clint’s ever seen it. “And jewelry. And liquor.” She blows out a breath. “And all the chocolate in the city.” 

“Yeah?” Clint tries to imagine Nat with any of that, let alone all of it, but he can’t. Not when she’s just herself. Nat’s a practical girl and she wears deception well, she’ll probably adopt the shoes and shiny things for a cover eventually, but she’s much more about boot sheaths for her knives than she is about fashion. 

A liquor and chocolate binge might do her some good, maybe, but it doesn’t really sound like something she’d do on her own. 

“He also bought Max’s company and had him fired.” Yeah, okay, that sounds better. Closer to something she’d appreciate. She slants Clint a look, eyes hooded and inscrutable. “I’m told he’ll never work on this planet again.” 

From most people, that would be hyperbole. From Tony Stark, it’s a very real possibility. Clint nods once, resolute. “Sounds about right.” 

And Clint thinks maybe it’s okay that he got held up in Helsinki if Natasha had Tony there to put that look on her face. 

:: 

They’ve finished their first bottle, have already cracked into the second, and Clint figures it’s just the couch and good intentions keeping him upright anymore. Natasha’s leaned back and they’ve shifted towards each other, not far off the cuddle he figures is coming before they both pass out, and while he still fucking hates the situation that’s put them there, he’s kind of glad they are. 

For a long time, it had just been the two of them, a pair of oddities in a department that collected them, both fucked up in their own ways but with enough in common to get along. 

Natasha’s not his brother and she’s never going to be but sometimes, Clint thinks she’s the sister he was meant to find. 

“You know there’s a sex tape,” she says, gives nothing and everything away in her tone. It’s not a question, and she is trying very hard not to let it fuck her up in any way other people can read. Clint’s fucking proud of her, and fucking homicidal all over again. 

Because who the hell is the asshole she slept with to make her feel like this? Clint’s got an itchy trigger finger, dammit, and a target for when he’s sober. 

“Yeah, I heard. Any idea what sort of damage Stark’s set up for anyone dumb enough to click that link?” Clint can’t imagine Tony hasn’t done something about it, something better than _litigation_. 

“Actually, that part was JARVIS.” 

Clint whistles, low and heavy. Natasha stares at him, evidently as aware as he is of the surreality of the situation, Tony’s AI looking out for her in ways Clint can’t. Then it breaks, _she_ breaks, and it’s instinct to shift his arm out of the way, to let her collapse against him and hide her face in his shoulder, to lay a hand on her hair and wait out her trembling. 

Laughter, tears, quite probably both, and because she’ll let him, because she hasn’t let the asshole ex strip away her ability to let herself be touched, Clint presses a kiss to her forehead, just holds on while he can. 

:: 

Natasha never breaks for long, never as much as Clint thinks other people would in the same situation, and one of the things he’s come to appreciate most about her is how tough she is, strong even about the things she thinks are weaknesses. Being touched, loved, doesn’t come easily to either one of them, just not how they were raised, and it’s taken a long time to convince themselves it’s okay. She sees her body as a weapon, sees her looks as an advantage to her cover, sees herself as an extension of missions and her mental ledger. He can’t blame her for it; until very recently, Clint’s been the same. 

But she stays resting against his shoulder, letting him keep an arm around her and curling up beside him, small and settled and comfortable. Safe, he thinks, and she is. 

She tells him about the others, how well he’s “prepped” Bruce — “Did you send him a checklist? Stop laughing, I spent three hours meditating, I know that was your fault.” — and how very confused she is about Cap, who sounds like he’s been six kinds of adorable and really, really awkward. 

Clint’s sorry he missed it, and not just because he’s been hoping Natasha would get more comfortable around Bruce eventually. The thing with Cap sounds kind of awesome. 

“Wait, he called you a ‘swell dame’ _and_ brought you flowers? Nat, I think you two might be married,” Clint jokes. 

She elbows him. “Stop it,” she orders. “He meant well. Actually, it was really sweet.” 

“Sweet, huh?” Funny, Clint’s never really thought of Cap like that. Always just seen him as a soldier, a relentless do-gooder with that black-and-white morality that didn’t leave room for the shades of grey Clint and Natasha lived by for so long. 

“Well, it wasn’t bringing him sandwiches in his lab or pretending to know genetics to impress him but yeah.” He can hear her roll her eyes, he’s sure of it, and because he’s cheered by the crack about him and his _mooning_ , he squeezes her congenially. 

“Who says I was pretending?” She looks up at him, stares dryly until he waggles his eyebrows and flashes her a cocky grin of self-satisfaction. “Hey. I could know things.” 

“Advanced genetics?” 

“I _could_ ,” he protests, but gives it up because even he can tell he’s back to grinning like an idiot. “Okay, point. But in my defense, he’s really pretty when he rambles. Don’t need to understand it, Nat, I just need to sit back and enjoy the show.” 

“You hear yourself, right? Because you’re this close to being one of those couples that makes everyone around them nauseous.” She holds her hand up, fingers pressed together. Then she drops her hand on his leg and sighs. “Max was really pretty.” 

“And a total idiot,” Clint counters, in case she needs the reminder. “Christ, Nat, he picked a fight with the Avengers.” 

“No, he didn’t. He tried to score guy points on the internet but he fucked _me_ over, Clint. It has nothing to do with the rest of you.” 

The mission, she means, which is just annoying. “You’re an Avenger. Pick a fight with one of us, you get a fight with all of us. That’s just how it goes. You know that.” She’s trying to move away on him, getting that look that says she’s slipping back into mission mode. He likes that she is, because mission mode is Natasha, but he doesn’t want her closing off until he’s sure she gets his point. “You’re saying if the Swordsman showed up tomorrow, you’d let me take him on alone?” 

It’s a direct hit, the best he’s got with this much vodka in him. “You know I wouldn’t,” she says carefully. 

“Exactly. You’d leave him for me, probably, but you’d help. It’s the same thing.” 

“He’s a poor life choice, Clint, not an arch-enemy.” 

“He’s a complete asshole who tried to fuck over a fabulous woman with an awful lot of brothers,” Clint counters evenly and yeah, okay, he can see that sinking in. 

“I can handle this myself,” she says, a warning Clint thinks might grow up to be a threat in defense of her independence. 

“I know you can. _We_ know it. Shit, you’re probably the only one of us with their shit together most of the time. Just, you don’t have to deal with everything alone.” 

She looks so vulnerable then, fragile as her trust in other people and so, so uncertain. Human, the woman he knows behind the Avenger, the scared kid outside of training and the person she so rarely shows to anyone. 

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” she says slowly; Clint thinks maybe she’s talking herself into it, maybe just figuring out her own mind as she speaks. “Steve has his shit pretty together, too.” 

Steve, huh? Interesting. Clint’s going to have to remember that later. 

“Pretty pretty, too. If you like that sort of thing.” Clint’s tastes, God help him, run more to dark-eyed and genius, impeccably controlled and perfectly capable of just letting go. 

Natasha lifts an eyebrow. “The genetically modified pinnacle of masculine perfection?” 

Clint shrugs. “Well, see, you ask me, that’s the dark-eyed looker in the lab coat.” 

“Tony?” she baits, false innocence with bite. 

It’s so Natasha, he can’t help but blurt a laugh. “Yeah, Tony.” 

Then she’s shaking her head at him, rolling her eyes and leaning in, letting herself fit comfortably beside him again like she means to stay. 

And forever later, when Clint’s nodding off and pretty sure Natasha is, too, he hears her say, “Thanks,” quietly into his shirt. 

“You’re amazing,” he says, sleep-slurred and thick-tongued, not so far gone yet he can’t brush another kiss over the top of her head. “Don’t forget it, okay?” 

And maybe she doesn’t say anything back but she makes a soft sound and she doesn’t move away at all, and Clint figures that’s as good as a promise. 

:: 

She’s up before him — of course she is, Natasha’s liver is a superpower — and off somewhere, doing something. JARVIS says she’s suited up in the training room and Clint thinks about joining her but fuck, not with this hangover. 

Clint needs coffee and a shower, preferably in that order, and if he’s really lucky, a dark-eyed genius to drag to bed. 

It’s a long, somewhat miserable trip up to the communal kitchen but he’s still there too soon, before he’s even thought about the fact that he might run into anyone but Bruce. 

It’s not Bruce at the table, though, it’s Cap. _Steve_ , which wakes Clint up more than it probably should. Nat will kick his ass if she hears about this but after last night, he can’t help himself. 

“So. You sent her flowers?” 

Cap doesn’t even need to ask who Clint means, Cap just looks a little startled by the question. “I thought she might like them.” 

Clint ponders that and nods. Slants a look back at Cap when the coffee maker’s starting. “Should I ask what your intentions are?” 

Cap looks like that might be a trick question. Even Clint’s not sure it isn’t. “I want her to be happy?” 

See, and this part, Clint can handle. He’s done it on every SHIELD agent she’s ever dated, anyone he’s caught looking twice at her. He wishes now he’d been less caught up in Bruce, better prepared to grill the asshole before things got this far. Clint settles himself back, leans against the counter and folds his arms across his chest, content to just watch Cap, get a read on him. 

Cap stares back at first, bewildered, but it’s not too long before he’s looking away, turning back to his breakfast in obvious avoidance. “Something on your mind, Barton?” Cap sounds pretty tense, looks up with resolve. 

“Yeah,” Clint starts, drawing the word out because he’s still not sure what he’s seeing, and he hears, “Hey, sleepyhead,” in a gentle laugh from the doorway. 

It’s Bruce, of course. _Of course_ it is, sleep-rumpled and bedheaded and totally adorable. Clint wants to cuddle him, not that he’ll admit it outside of their room. Then Bruce is smiling at him and shuffling forward, looking like every good dream Clint’s had all week. 

Bruce whispers “Please don’t annoy Cap, it’s been a long week,” as he steals a hug and Clint has to squawk a low protest to get a closed-mouth kiss. “Hm. You even taste like hangover. You two have a good night?” 

“Always,” Clint answers because he can’t not answer Bruce, but he’s looking at Cap, trying to pin what’s going on with the guy. “Thanks. Both of you. All of you, I guess. For looking out for her while I was gone.” 

“Don’t have to thank us for that,” Bruce counters, still leaning against Clint like that’s where he belongs. As far as Clint’s concerned, it is. “She’s our friend, too.” 

Cap looks like he’s got something else he wants to say, like it’s burning a hole in him to keep it in, but like he doesn’t have the words. It’s unusual for him; Nat called it right last night, Cap really does have his shit together most of the time, enough to make Clint feel like a wreck of humanity sometimes even without trying. 

“Yeah, I get that. Just, it was pretty much just us for a long time. She’s, uh. She’s family.” 

Whatever Cap’s got on the tip of his tongue disappears then, like Clint’s answered a question he couldn’t make himself ask. Cap nods, slow and deliberate, a clear _understood, message received_. 

Clint nuzzles a little into Bruce’s hairline, breathes his coffee-shower-scientist plan in Bruce’s ear and feels Bruce’s fingers tighten on his shirt. When Clint glances back at Cap, he sees something not unlike Natasha looked last night, something Clint thinks has to be loneliness. Then, well, the only choice there’s obvious. 

“She, uh, might think you’re gay for Tony,” Clint says carefully. Cap’s forehead furrows. “No clue why — I’m guessing Darcy — but you might want to clear that up. You know, go talk to her?” 

And maybe it’s not hugs and vodka with Nat on his couch, not pulling Bruce into a shower or curling behind him while they’re in bed, but there’s something worth keeping in the way Cap’s face brightens, how quickly he leaves, and Clint thinks maybe, possibly, it’s something good.


End file.
